Wireless communication devices are widely used in many products today, such as cell phones, televisions, avionics, medical imaging apparatus, etc. Many wireless communication devices utilize a direct conversion receiver (i.e., a homodyne receiver) to wirelessly transmit data in the form of electromagnetic radiation.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical direct-conversion receiver (DCR) 100. The DCR 100 comprises a receiver front end (FE) 102 configured to receive an RF input signal SRF from an antenna port (not shown). The receiver front end 102 comprises a mixer/demodulator 104, which is driven by a local oscillator (LO) signal SLO to demodulate the received signal from an RF signal SRF to a baseband signal SIQ having in-phase (I) and quadrature phase (Q) components. The receiver front end 102 further comprises one or more amplifiers 106, 108 configured to amplify the baseband signal SIQ. The output of the receiver front end 102 is provided to an analog-to-digital converter 110 that converts the baseband signal SIQ from an analog signal to a digital signal, which is provided to a signal processor 112 configured to recover data from the signal.